>> i want to object to one thing only. >> if i let you speak everybody has to speak. and we are not going to go forward with this. >> on that part of the voters we said that 6724 is part of the law of this county and you cannot just throw it out... >> can i make myself clear? >> no. >> i want an ethics commiting commissioner not a deposit city attorney to review those files i want you to look at those. >> could we turn off that mic? >> i would be prepared to make a motion along the lines of mr. gibner's suggestion if that reflects what you are suggesting >> miss herrick? >> yes. >> yes, i am. >> would you be willing to review the file that the correspondence file to determine whether there are any non-privileged documents there in?

>> yes. >> thank you, very much. >> right and we will need to report to the commission explaining the results of your review. if that would be okay? >> certainly, yes. >> to the extent that you find documents that... well let me also ask this question, can we the ethics commission know the volume of the correspondence file with the controller's office? is that something that is publicly disclosable? >> is that question to me? >> i am sorry that is to mr. gibner. >> okay. i think that what you are asking is when miss herrick

reviews the documents whatever documents they are, can she then describe them to you in a way that is generic enough not to disclose whatever confidential information is in them in order for you to make a determination as to whether they are issued in the public documents? i think that the answer to that is question. that would allow you to make your deliberation. could i also, and can we know in this public session the volume of correspondence between the controllers office and the ethics commiting on this matter? >> are you asking, i don't think that the answer is available for miss herrick now. >> no, sir from miss herrick or mr. st. croix. i think that we are trying to ask her how much we are asking her to review. i want to know the size of the correspondence file. >> right, again, i can't speak

to the controller's office's files, i can speak to the ethics commission's file and i don't see a problem with the ethics if the people here know the ethics commission saying that we are talking... >> just ballpark. >> an inch ten boxes. >> right. >> i am sorry i really have no idea and neither does miss argenito. >> a banker's box? >> i believe that is not... >> okay. i think that we should make a motion along the lines that we have described. is there a motion to find that mr. st. croix and miss lediju,

have not committed a willful failure to comply with the sunshine task force with respect to the investigative files of the commission and the control's office. we are particularly carving out, however, correspondence, that might be in the ethics commission's files relating to the complaint and with the controller's office that are not privileged. and we are directing miss herrick to review those files. nso moved. >> is there a second. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> opposed? >> none, the motion passes. >> miss herrick, thank you for your time. thank you for agreeing to look at the documents. we appreciate that. we direct the commission to turnover that correspondence to

miss herrick as soon as possible. >> you're welcome. >> thank you. >> thank you, truly. >> thank you very much. >> certainly. >> thank you. >> i am going to sign out, now, then. >> thank you. >> i cannot blame you. >> thank you. >> good night. >> it is time for a baseball game. >> i have not gotten my update here. >> the next item on the agenda is discussion and possible action on drafting amendments to cfro and i understand that we cannot decide this without four members. my initial thought was let's discuss it any way. but, since in light of the depth of the discussion on the previous matter, i would vote to defer it until we have a full commission or at least four commissioners to discuss it. any objections from the fellow commissioners?

>> no objections. >> if we are going to go on for an extended time i would respectfully request a rest room break. but if you think that we will... that would prolong things undually... >> i was thinking that we would not need much additional time to get through the rest of this. but, i am happy to take a break. >> no. >> i don't want to make anybody uncomfortable. >> that is okay. >> the next item on the agenda is the annual report for 2011, 2012. mr. st. croix would you like to introduce this matter? >> in the interest of brevity, the report is self-introduction torrey, most of you are familiar with this process. so, i present the draft for your consideration. >> public comment? >> the report says that there

are over 400 twitter users who get updates and 250 facebook users get updates but it does not tell you how much whistle blower retaliation complaints were reviewed by the ethics committee in the whole year. thank you. >> commissioners, ray heart, san francisco, open government. despite all of the complaints in this report regarding the low staffing levels it is hard to see what benefits the public gains for expenditures of millions of dollars each year. even the budget figures listed in this report are impossible to understand. the latest six years of figures range from 3.6 million, to 8.4 million. that is an average of 6 million dollars a year. what do the citizens of san francisco get for this $6 million amount? honestly, reading the report there would not be seen to be much bang for the buck.

i have heard estimates anywhere from 1.2 to 1.8 million just for the investigation of the sheriff. the referals for the sunshine ordinance task force are still after 14 years not being heard. the civil grand jury report is dismissed in this report, with only a link to the report and a link to your response. and so basically you did not even feel it was worth commenting on the civil grand jury report. what exactly do the citizens of this city get for this $6 million a year? if you kind of price it out, this commission, its operation costs us a half a million dollars a month. half a million dollars a month. and what we just saw, which to me was just a rude goldberg throw it together we have no idea what we are doing, so let's just put something together now and hope to hell

it works. i think that the board of supervisors saved your behinds because if they had voted to remove the sheriff it would have gone back to court and the judge would have said, recall is the way that you over turn a lawful election, not this put together, jury-rigged mistake for a procedure that you somehow tried to publicly defend. and if you break it down another way, we stand with your 17 employees in this report, 352,000 dollars per employee per year. and i will be honest with you, i come to these meetings and i can't see you doing a damn thing to make this city any more ethical, or any more open, in fact, what you just did in the last case was say, well, we are... we have not seen the

file, and they won't tell us what is in the file, we don't know what is in the file, we don't know whether it is confidential or not, but we are going to find that the people being charged for withholding documents are not guilty and then we will go and look to see if there is anything in there that might be. talk about back asswards that is... >> now let me just... is there any other public comment on this? >> you know, let me just say, i did not reiterate the analysis that was provided by miss herrick in the memo and that she stated in response to the questions, but there is an important need to keep investigatory files confidential and the basis, i think are quite clear. any individual who files a whistle blower complaint is going to be subject to pressure to make a disclosure if such disclosure is possible and we

need to protect not just dr. kerr not just mr. revera and not just any particular whistle blower, but we need to protect future whistle blowers from a come pull son to disclose and the investigatory files if any part of them were disclosable you run a very serious risk of not being able to conduct the investigation. who is going to talk to an investigator if they think that any part of their interview, that the fact that they were interviewed, the time that they were interviewed, that it could be disclosed and i think that there is an important public benefit to being able to protect them from such disclosures so that we can do the very work that we are talking about. so, you know, the notion that we just you know, we don't care about what is in the files and we just want to rubber stamp, you know, the analysis, is totally, unfounded.

i think to the contrary, we have spent an enormous amount of time trying to get this right and frankly i recent the idea that we have not given it detailed thought. >> additional public comment? >> paul korer again, i want to respond thoughtfully to the statement that you just made because i sat in this room all the way including to the bomb threat and when you left the room on june 29th i stayed in this room, this exact room and i wanted to mention this argument and apply it to lopez because you know what her attorney-client privileges were breached and she claimed that her attorney husband presented themselves as lawyers and that she... while that was confident and you know what? and then they disclosed everything against her will and

then you guys went ahead and took all that have and adjudicated based on it. so i see the hypocracy, thank you. >> thank you, chair for clarifying the record and the basis for our decisions tonight. >> with respect to the annual report, thank you for putting it together. staff. one thing that i thought could have been or could be done differently, and is the highlights don't appear to be in order of importance or chronological order. i think that they should be in either chronological order or order of importance. >> we can do that.

>> a like the notion that there was a section on future initiatives and the kinds of priorities and values that we are trying to address. i think that in addition to carrying out the very specific responsibilities allocated to the commission, like campaign audit and distribution of campaign finance funding and so forth, that we are obligated to do and we are also to make these things clearer and make them understood and carry out initiatives that we did not craft or ask for. but, responsibilities that are put in our laps that we tried

to carry out as thoughtfully and responsibly as we can. at the moment i don't... i am simply saying that i like that there was a discussion on 19. i think that one thing that we might do, is consider how to bring particular items on this list back to us in the course of the year, so that we can, you know, some of them already will be the cfro revisions and the sunshine task force collaborative project for how we handle those proceedings. but, so i think what i am simply suggesting is that we look at it and see which ones would not naturally come to us as a ago agenda item and see which one of those deserves our

perception of fairness or the public understanding or matters that don't have a fiber of a decisional action to be taken. >> that is a good suggestion. >> >> i would particularly pleased with the commission's from what thankless handling of the procedural mechanisms relating to our mekarini hearings, the documents were publicly available and quickly available and easy to use, as easy to use format as i think as the circumstances. the way that the summaries were put together, i think was

efficient and allowed the public to understand for the most part, what we had done and what we were planning to do. it was the behind the scenes and thankless task but it was an important task. and particularly for public access to those documents in a quick, efficient way was valuable and i appreciate that. >> any other comments on the annual report? >> no, thank you, i was just going to say thank you for putting it together and i do like the suggestion of bringing the future items back through the year as it makes sense so that we can revisit and see where we are and if we are on track with the goals ta we set out. >> can we identify in here, the

number of similar complaints that we have handled >> yeah, what i will do is there was actually a separate annual report on the whistle blower program. in fact i received it last week. so, what we will do is at the appropriate place in the report, we will mention that report and add a link to it so that the people reading this know where they can get comprehensive information about that. >> and i just like to clarify that our operating budget in the last six years is averaged $2.3 million that is all of the expense of the commission, all of the other funds are dedicated solely to public financing. and all of that money goes to candidates. >> could you take a look at the document and see if that seems crisp enough for readers to make that distinction.

>> sure, yeah, thank you. >> have you been clearer? >> should we... is there any action that needs to be taken? >> is there a motion to adopt the report as amended by comments by the commissioners? >> so moved. >> second? >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. aye. >> opposed? >> there being none, the motion passes. >> the next item has to do with minutes. >> i want to bring something up regarding the minute policy. >> okay. >> in general. in the past, we have not published draft minutes on our website. simply because when there are changes made once you publish something on the website it is out there in the ether we did not want the people to confuse the draft ones with the

permanent ones. that never has been a problem before at the last meeting the last two meetings, i guess the members of the public were concerned that they didn't have the ability to see the minutes in advance. now, the minutes are available to the public at the office. but, we... there is a simple answer to that concern, so in the future, we will actually post draft minutes on the website in advance. we are going to do it in a format that permanently reflects a draft status and when the permanent ones are posted they will be the final version. so we are going to change that policy to make it more user friendly. >> i think that is a good change. >> any questions, any public comment on the minutes? >> minutes... >> paul, korer again, i was one

of the citizens of the city that complained that all through the mayor coreni hearings i did not see one meeting where the proposed minutes were ever published as we went meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting. and the sunshine ordinance states that draft minutes must be made available within ten days of the meeting. so the whole ethics commission is in violation of the governing law of this county which is the sunshine ordinance and i say that in a sense that in 6736, the sunshine ordinance reads that it is supercedes all other law in the county. so that is with regard to public access and information, and the minutes of meetings definitely is not something that the controller's office can say is privileged and confidential and we can't share with anybody. these are minutes of open meetings, that belong to the public. you know, so i complained about

that, and when i filed my sunshine complaint, because i was really upset about the bomb threat. personally i was upset about not being warned to leave city hall. i mean you guys thought it was... i listened to the sheriff and the sheriff, and the mayor before he left and the sheriff saying who stayed here, he said, we never got any protocol to clear the building. and i was surprised that vicki henisi, the acting sheriff had called john st. croix and told him on his personal cell phone according to his statement made to kcbs in this room that she called over because there was some threat on the mayor's life. so, now, it was turns out that it is a bomb threat. and i would like to think that the mayor cares about the citizens of this city and county. and i would like to think that

if there is a bomb threat in the city hall that the whole building is evacuated. >> i was upset in the minutes that we could say easily on the 29th. mr. hur that you recessed the meeting and adjourned it at the end. but i personally witnessed it in the meeting as soon as the bomb threat came in this meeting was adjourned i saw him do that with my own eyes, next there to mr. st. croix and to here it adjourned and reconvenes and this is unusual and none of it is in the minutes. so the actual record of what actually happened in this room is not accurate. and i object to that. and when i said that this was done inclusion with the mayor and steve cava and mr. sure. captain over at the sfpd and i said that there was collusion going on and all of this was done to keep the mayor who was

per jering himself and protecting himself and this was done in the conclusion, this is organized crime and i have been talking about this publicly in meeting after meeting because it is time to stop and i have been asking for the feds to come in and start arresting people. i would like to see supervisors arrested. a believe the organized crime that went on with partner said and all of you will go home to a bed tonight. there are 300 people at partner's said that are section 8 cases that should have been heard in federal court that have been evicted in the court right here. this incredible and for you to allow the illegal minutes... processes. >> commissioners, ray heart, director of san francisco open government. i believe that it is time for someone on this ethics commission to show some level

of integrity by asking the executive director john st. croix in public why he is so determined to keep the actual thoughts of the public out of the official record. i'm talking particularly about the case about the meeting minutes of july 23rd where i brought up this same issue and i was told by the commissioner that we follow the law, i read you the law earlier. we are talking about constitutionally protected politically free speech. mr. st. croix takes that free speech out of the official record, appends it somewhere else and in the place of where it lawfully should appear. substitute his approved censored version of our comments, anyone can read these minutes and see that what i said and what mr. st. croix says that i said are not the same. i am censored as are other members of the public.

i continue this... to continue this, the ethics commission must show a compelling state interest. if you try to take what a member of the public says and their free speech is protected in its writing and its publication in the government document. mr. st. croix does not like what members of the public have to say, and wants to retain the ability to marginalize that free speech and substitute his own interpretation. that is viewpoint discrimination. it is what is specifically under the law not permitted. and mr. hur, you, tonight, made it very clear that you don't like what i say. and i have been before bodies before because i was questioning what they were doing or how they were doing it and they come back and they kind of make some short of speech argument which you did tonight, which did not even address what i was talking about. you just explained away your own behavior and you can sit

there and smile all that you want, it is what you do. you don't like what members of the public have to say and you want to make sure that it does not actually make it into the record. and ask mr. st. croix, all that he has ever said is that the city attorney said that we can. what is the purpose? if your free speech was misrepresented in the record and you felt that the reason that you had sat for two hours and made that statement so that your public comments would be accurately reflected, how would you feel if a functionary was allowed to simply put it somewhere elsewhere people were less likely to see it and put in what he says you said. and just look at us. look at what i wrote in my summaries and look at what he put in the record. and tell me they are the same.

>> any comments on the minutes? >> i have a very small correction. on september 24th, page 3, paragraph one, third paragraph, the next po last sentence says that i suggested that the commission will be able to amend. i think that it would read more accurate to to be able to amend the regulations if the task force meets and has suggestions. what i was trying at the time was to say that or suggest that we could go forward with the amendments and that when the time comes, that the sunshine task force is able to comment, we could revisit and incorporate recommendations that they have but not to hold

up while they are not able to meet. that is my point. >> i think that we should make that change. >> any other changes to the minutes? >> no. >> can you hear the rain? >> yeah. >> is there a motion to adopt the minutes of the july 23, july 24th and september 11th? >> is there a second? >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? hearing none, the motion passes. >> executive director's report. >> okay. two highlights, one is i expect that the november meeting will probably run kind of long. we are going to go